Pages tagged "Brexit"

At Prime Ministers questions I asked the Prime Minister if, after her deal falls, she'll hold indicative votes to understand what Brexit might be supported by MPs. The options would include Common Market 2.0 As usual she failed to answer.

On the day that the cross-party Norway Plus Group of MPs published a major report advocating ‘Common Market 2.0’ - a plan to reset the UK-Europe relationship for the 21st Century, I set out why this is an alternative Brexit plan.

Today the cross-party Norway Plus Group of MPs are publishing a major report advocating ‘Common Market 2.0’ - a plan to reset the UK-Europe relationship for the 21st Century.

‘Common Market 2.0’, co-authored by Lucy Powell MP and Robert Halfon MP, on behalf of the Norway Plus Group, sets out how stepping out of the EU political integration project and towards the popular and fruitful common market relationship that the UK enjoyed with Europe in the 1970s and 1980s could gain widespread public support whilst delivering on the result of the 2016 referendum.

Labour secured an emergency debate in Parliament about the Government's preparations for a No Deal Brexit. During the debate I cited the Committee for Exiting the EU evidence that No Deal is a charade. Ports and hospitals are not ready. The EU is not ready. Parliament won't be bullied into backing May's deal with empty threats of No Deal. It's a false choice.

Theresa May limped through her no confidence vote, but her dog’s dinner of a Brexit deal is still dead in the water.

May’s decision to defer the Meaningful Vote was not only the most anti-democratic act by a British Prime Minister in living memory, it was also utterly self-defeating.

Had May held the vote she would also have gained leverage in negotiations with the EU – proof that they need to budge. But perhaps most importantly she would have moved the debate along. She would have learnt much about the will of the House, and what deal she can do with Brussels.

But with May’s head still buried in the sand, and with Labour reluctant to table a No Confidence motion, we remain stuck in a state of limbo.

On Tuesday evening one of us will vote against Theresa May’s deal. The other will vote in favour. One of us will vote for Jeremy Corbyn’s amendment — and for any motion of no confidence in the government. The other will vote against.

One of us is Welsh through and through — the representative of the Port Talbot steel-making community and proud scion of a tribe of passionate Labour politicians and trade unionists. The other is as English as hot buttered toast, the representative of Grantham in Lincolnshire, where Margaret Thatcher was born and raised, and a Tory moderniser with a career in business behind him.

As Parliament debated the Prime Minister's Brexit deal I spoke about respecting the referendum result and how Norway Plus is the best way to do that. The instruction given by 52:48 referendum vote is clear: move house, but stay in same neighbourhood. To leave EU's political project, but to retain full access to a market of 500 million consumers. Norway Plus meets those aims, introduces a safeguard on Freedom of Movement & solves the Irish border issue